Karl Thaler righted the overstuffed chair. “Why didn’t you call me?” he asked his grandfather. “I could have stopped them.”
Johan Thaler said nothing. At 86, he was still sprightly, so it wasn’t because he couldn’t say anything. It was because he knew what his grandson would say. He said it anyway.
“When the government still thinks you are a racist, they are allowed to do anything to you.”
Karl put a hand on his hip, and regarded his grandfather with a look of disdain. “Empapa,” he said, calling him by his childhood name, “that’s not true.”
“Not true? It is true I am no longer a bigot; they beat it out of me. And so did your father. Where is your father?”
Karl looked away.
“What?”
“He’s at the police station. They called him in because they found something here, and since he has the power of attorney—“
“What did they find? I’ve done nothing wrong!” He struggled to stand off the couch.
Karl rushed over and helped him up. “Empapa, I don’t know what they found.”
The door of the nursing home opened and Karl’s father Adolf walked in. He had always wondered if he was named after Hitler, but Johan had reassured him that Adolf was the name of a distant relative in the 1700’s. And it was true. Adolf did not call himself by that name during the occupation years. Sometimes he was still called Walt, his middle name.
“Adolf,” Johan said, now standing firmly on his feet.
Adolf sighed. “Father,” he said. “The police have asked me about this number you’ve been calling. It’s an American number.”
“It’s an old friend from the war. We talk sometimes.”
“Who is it?”
“He’s known under a different name.”
The three men were getting looks from people, and Adolf shut the door on them, then went over close to his father. “Father, please don’t tell me you talk about the war.”
“Sometimes we do. Sometimes I tell him about my life here! Such as it is, such as what you’ve done to me.”
“What about this man?”
“What does it matter?”
“The police have heard of Jagermeister.”
His father suddenly laughed. “Jagermeister? That’s a myth. He never existed.”
“That’s not what some people have said.”
“And why, why do they think this man is Jagermeister?”
“He answered the phone as Luther Waldemar.”
“What kind of German name is Waldemar?” The man waved his hand at them. “You see things that aren’t there. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do?”
“You know why they came here, don’t you?”
“Because they needed to fulfill their quota of making ex-SS men feel worse all over again?”
“Oradour-sur-Glane.”
“I wasn’t there.”
“Was Jagermeister?”
“How the hell should I know? He didn’t exist.”
Adolf sighed again, stepped away from his father. “I don’t know what to do with you.”
“And that’s why I’m here; you don’t want to take me home to take care of me. You think I’ll sully your reputation being an ex-SS-Unterscharfuhrer Panzerfaher, Knight’s Cross winner. You want to still make love to the Americans. You even speak their evil tongue, and you’ve taught it to your son.”
Karl had been quiet the entire time his father badgered his grandfather. Adolf put a hand on Karl’s arm. “Don’t bring him into this.”
“You’re the one who brought him into this world. He should at least be proud of his grandfather, not ashamed, not like you are.”
“This is over,” said Adolf. “You will no longer be making calls to America.”
“I have many friends in America,” he snarled. “I am your father!”
“And I hold your money, and pay your phone bill. No more, once I get home, I’ll block that number.”
“Papa,” said Karl, “let him at least talk to his friends.”
“Stay out of this, Karl. I’ve made my decision.”
Both father and son looked at each other with defiance. Finally, Adolf could take no more and left the room. Karl glanced back at his grandfather, seemingly defeated, and made a “Y” with his finger and thumb, placing it against his face as he looked at Johann. Johann nodded and hobbled to the dresser.
Karl got home, and called his grandfather. “Empapa,” he said quietly, “If you want to call that man, give me the number, and I’ll call him for you, and have him call you.”
“I called him already. He gave me a different number, to the Etoile Isles off the coast of America. But I will give you his number, and we can use that as plan B.” Johann gave him the number, and the boy sat on it for hours. Finally, his curiosity got the better of him, and late, late at night, he called the number.
“’allo?”
“Hello,” he said in English. “My grandfather is Johann Thaler.”
“Ah, yes,” said a voice back to him in perfect, unaccented English, untouched by time’s weariness. “I’ve heard what his son is doing to him. Very nasty business.”
“Is your son like that?”
“Not many of my sons know me anymore. Why are you calling?”
“Is it true?”
“Is what true?”
“You’re Jagermeister?”
“Would it make a difference if I was?”
“It would make a difference to me.”
“So you would report me? Where I am, there is no such thing as extradition.”
“No, no, I would never do that.”
There was a pause, and the man switched ears, and also sounded like he was in a tunnel. “You are of the romantic generation, thinking that the SS was a group of proud Aryan men struggling to stem the tide of the dirty Jew and red politicos from the East and West? Most of them were boys, some were even homosexual, and we were more concerned with saving our sorry asses and getting food than some ideological bullshit.”
Karl blinked, his eyes welling up for a moment with tears.
“Sorry to burst your bubble, kid, but you would not have wanted to be in the Hitler Youth in those days. It was hell, I’m telling you. Don’t let the romance fool you.”
“I was…going to call…if my grandfather couldn’t…”
“He remembers the romance, too. It would be cruel of me to stop him from remembering that. I will be happy to talk to him. And you too, young man; just get your head out of the clouds. Gutentag, mein herr,” said the man, and hung up.
Karl sniffled and whispered, “Heil Hitler,” as he pressed the red button on the phone.